New Year, New Problems
'' New Year, New Problems ''is the thirteenth book in the Middle School Experience series. It is the first book where the main characters are in seventh grade. It chronicles the girls' first few weeks as seventh graders and focuses on Arabella and Robbie's relationship problems. The girls have begun seventh grade and feel confident about their second year of middle school. However, the year doesn’t start off great for one of the girls. Arabella feels like her boyfriend, Robbie, has lost interest in her and ends their relationship. Jessie, who is close to both Arabella and Robbie, is torn on who to support. Will she have to choose between her friends? And will Arabella get back together with Robbie? Summary The story begins with Arabella getting ready for the first day of school. During her morning routine, she puts on makeup to hide the fact that she had been crying last night. She is not very thrilled about school starting again because she will have to face Robbie, who had gone to camp for the summer and hadn't sent her any letters while he was away. After she gets ready, she goes downstairs to eat breakfast with her parents and brother. After they finish, Arabella and Kyle walk to the bus stop to wait for their buses. A few minutes later, Gail arrives to the bus stop and catches up with Arabella. Eventually, their bus arrives, and the girls climb on. Arabella is nervous about seeing Robbie at school and confides in Gail, who reassures her that everything will be fine between her and Robbie. When she and Gail arrive at school, one of the first people they see is Robbie. Robbie and Freddy stop by to say hello to them, but Robbie is oddly cold to Arabella, which doesn't help her mood. Robbie's snub, along with some pretty crappy events, ends up ruining Arabella's day. At lunchtime, she meets up with Jessie and Alex, and the girls talk about how their first days are going. The girls decide to compare schedules, and Arabella finds that she has language arts with Jessie after lunch. Arabella reunites with her other friends, and a few of them decide to go to the club fair held outside the cafeteria. Arabella goes to the fair with Gail, Chloe, and Jessie, and the girls end up running into Robbie and Freddy. Robbie ignores Arabella again and makes weekend plans with Freddy and Jessie, which he doesn't bother to invite Arabella or any of the other girls to. Gail and Chloe begin to notice Robbie's weird behavior, and Arabella begins to feel even worse. For the rest of the week, Robbie continues to act strange around Arabella. Arabella confronts Jessie about it, and Jessie informs her that she knows Robbie is acting strange, but doesn't know why. On Friday, Arabella tells Chloe and Gail that she might have to break up with Robbie. Gail and Chloe try to convince her that this decision won't be worth it and will make things worse, and Chloe mentions that Robbie's close friends might start hating her if she dumps Robbie. Arabella feels conflicted on what to do. During the weekend, she texts him and asks him to call her later so they can get through their situation, but by Saturday night, she begins to lose hope for their relationship when he doesn't call. On Sunday evening, she sees a picture of him hanging out with Freddy and Jessie on Facebook and snaps. She sends him a breakup text, but feels even worse after sending it. On Monday morning, Jessie and Chloe are at their bus stop when they meet up with Freddy and Robbie. The girls notice that the boys do not look happy. Robbie tells them that Arabella broke up with him, shocking the girls. Chloe feels guilty for not doing enough to convince Arabella not to make this decision. When they arrive at school, Jessie notices that most of her friends are crowded around Arabella. Robbie immediately begins walking away, and Freddy follows him. Chloe joins the girls, but Jessie decides to see if Robbie's okay. Jessie feels like Arabella just made things more dramatic by refusing to speak to Robbie, but fears that Arabella will react negatively if she tells her this. At lunch, Jessie, Freddy, and Robbie decide to sit at a separate table from their friends. She tries to ask Robbie why he didn't invite them to their weekend outing, but Robbie snaps at her. After lunch, Jessie goes to her language arts class, which she shares with Arabella. Arabella asks Jessie if Robbie had said anything about her, and when Jessie confesses that Robbie thinks that he did nothing wrong, Arabella goes into a rage, sparking attention from their classmates. Jessie tells her that Robbie never wanted to break up with Arabella, but this freaks out Arabella even more. Class begins, and the teacher tells the students that they are going to be reading "Flipped" by Wendelin van Draanen. Jessie is excited to read the story, but Arabella, who believes that the story reminds her of her relationship with Robbie, begins crying, earning the ridicule of her classmates and the embarrassment of Jessie. Arabella does not get much sleep that night, and by the next morning, she is exhausted. However, after hearing that Robbie doesn't want to be broken up, she decides to try to get him back. Despite warnings from her family that she'll end up getting hurt, Arabella attempts to text Robbie the next morning, but her mind blanks before she type anything to him. Irene drops Arabella and Kyle off at the bus stop, but when she leaves, Arabella realizes that her phone is missing. It turns out that Kyle had snatched it from her backpack and he and his friends dial Robbie's number and prank-calls him, which angers him. After Arabella gets her phone back, she attempts to call Robbie to apologize for her brother, but he ends up blocking her from calling or texting him. Arabella begins to think that there's no hope for them getting back together. Jessie is becoming increasingly annoyed with Arabella's irrational behavior about the breakup, and is not surprised to see that some of the other girls are annoyed, too. At lunch, Arabella asks Jessie a question about Robbie, but Jessie replies rudely. Arabella accuses Jessie of being unsupportive, but Gail drags Arabella to the bathroom before a fight starts. When they leave, Alex expresses her disgust of Arabella's behavior, and some of the other girls agree. Regina seems to think that Arabella is acting overdramatic because she wants sympathy. On Friday, Jessie snaps at Robbie for his rude behavior towards her, and at lunch the same day, Jessie finally snaps at Arabella. Both are angry at Jessie and walk away, making Jessie finally realize that they were never going to solve their problem and get back together. Due to Jessie's reaction, Arabella sees that Gail and Chloe were right about Robbie's close friends hating her after their breakup. During the weekend, Arabella talks to her sister Taylor about her situation. Taylor tells her that it wasn't wise to break up with Robbie over text, and tells her that she needs to talk to him face-to-face about how she feels. Arabella decides to follow her sister's advice, but she is afraid of what the end result will be. On Monday, Arabella is in a better mood. However, her confidence begins to wane when it seems like Jessie is not happy to be around her. After language arts class, Arabella talks to Jessie and apologizes for the harsh words she had said earlier, and Jessie apologizes for coming off as insensitive. Jessie encourages Arabella to talk to Robbie. After school that day, Arabella finally decides to speak to Robbie. They both confess that they don't want to be broken up. Arabella confesses how she felt ignored by him over the summer and the first week of school, and Robbie confesses that he was nervous about seeing her again after a long time. He surprises her with a gift that he made at camp for her, which is a scrapbook of Arabella's letters and pictures that Robbie had taken at camp. At the end of the book is a letter that Robbie had written for Arabella. They confess their love for each other and decide to celebrate at a science club meeting. Characters (in order of appearance) * Arabella Wilson * Joel Wilson * Kyle Wilson * Taylor Wilson * Irene Wilson * Gail Edwards * Freddy Hamilton * Robbie James * Jessie Sanchez * Alex Sanders * Chloe Winters * Leah Harrison * Daphne Carson * Maryann Chang * Ellie Jackson * Regina Daniels Trivia *This book was rewritten four times. First edition, 2008. Fourth edition, August 2017. *Originally, Jessie was going to immediately get mad at Arabella for breaking up with Robbie, the creator thought that that was stupid and illogical, so she rewrote the plot. Also, there was a part where Chloe was torn between Jessie and Arabella, but that got taken out of the story. Category:Stories